Caribbean Princess - A WinksCruises Photo Review - December 12 - 19 2021 - Eastern Caribbean Sailing

[JF - retired RRT]

32 minutes ago, mellon1 said:

We are looking for a larger balcony covered aft.  Mini suite or suite. 

On the Caribbean (?) That would be E730 & 731.

Dolphin deck has a really huge balcony in the same location, but they're not covered and have a handicap bathroom (altho' not classified as a HC cabin).

[MissP22]

1 hour ago, WinksCruises said:

This reminds me, we still need to write about the sham Club Class dining is... 

We've never done Club Class & always though it wasn't wort it.

Let us know more. 

[Mrs. Winks]

1 hour ago, mellon1 said:

Thanks!  We did Club Class one time and we preferred traditional dining room.  We liked having the same waiter/assistant waiter and getting to know them.  They also knew us and what we liked and had it ready!  Do you have any pictures of your suite and the balcony?  We are looking for a larger balcony covered aft.  Mini suite or suite.  Cheers!

Sure thing. We were on Dophin D736 and the balcony was indeed covered. It was delightful! We love a good aft balcony!

Edited January 12, 2022 by Mrs. Winks

[Mrs. Winks]

43 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

On the Caribbean (?) That would be E730 & 731.

Dolphin deck has a really huge balcony in the same location, but they're not covered and have a handicap bathroom (altho' not classified as a HC cabin).

We were in D736 and it was a covered balcony. I posted pics in a separate post reply. Also this was not a handicap/accessible room. It is a standard Vista Suite. 😁

Edited January 12, 2022 by Mrs. Winks

[mellon1]

20 minutes ago, Mrs. Winks said:

Sure thing. We were on Dophin D736 and the balcony was indeed covered. It was delightful! We love a good aft balcony!

Nothing better than watching and listening to the wake while having a cocktail, especially at night.  The large aft covered balconies in the mini and suites on the new ships seem to be non-existent anymore.  Appreciate the photos.  Ship looks in good condition too.

[JF - retired RRT]

1 hour ago, Mrs. Winks said:

We were in D736 and it was a covered balcony. I posted pics in a separate post reply. Also this was not a handicap/accessible room. It is a standard Vista Suite. 😁

Correct. D736 is a suite.

I was referring to the aft minis on E & D.

[WinksCruises]

1 hour ago, Mrs. Winks said:

It is a standard Vista Suite.

And it was, in fact, called The St. Thomas Suite and had it's own space on the room directional sign when you entered the hallway from the elevators. Something I was stupidly giddy over.

 

Oh, and because of the steel support beam running through the balcony (see Mrs. Winks' pictures above)  it's actually classified as an "obstructed view" suite!

Edited January 12, 2022 by WinksCruises

[cr8tiv1]

9 hours ago, mellon1 said:

The large aft covered balconies in the mini and suites on the new ships seem to be non-existent anymore.  Appreciate the photos.  Ship looks in good condition too.

 

I am not an aft lover, but do appreciate a good suite.  Somewhere down the line, the bean counters decided that cabins needed to be revamped (and not for the better).  A long time ago, I "won" a night on the Queen Mary, Long Beach.  I remember the days of traveling on a Matson "luxury" liner.  I had so much fun re-living those days on the Queen Mary.  I always thought they should have turned her into a Cruise Ship hotel ... with classes and full ship activities.  But I digress.  

 

Be it said, I am in favor of the older Princess ships.  My days have passed.

 

Thank you so very much for sharing your cruise with us.

 

[AF-1]

17 hours ago, mellon1 said:

Thanks!  We did Club Class one time and we preferred traditional dining room.  We liked having the same waiter/assistant waiter and getting to know them.  They also knew us and what we liked and had it ready!  Do you have any pictures of your suite and the balcony?  We are looking for a larger balcony covered aft.  Mini suite or suite.  Cheers!

mellion1;  I have had club class on all my cruises and we have the same wait staff every night.  

[mellon1]

6 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

I am not an aft lover, but do appreciate a good suite.  Somewhere down the line, the bean counters decided that cabins needed to be revamped (and not for the better).  A long time ago, I "won" a night on the Queen Mary, Long Beach.  I remember the days of traveling on a Matson "luxury" liner.  I had so much fun re-living those days on the Queen Mary.  I always thought they should have turned her into a Cruise Ship hotel ... with classes and full ship activities.  But I digress.  

 

Be it said, I am in favor of the older Princess ships.  My days have passed.

 

Thank you so very much for sharing your cruise with us.

 

I totally agree with you about the changes to the newer ships.  I am having a difficult time finding a room with a large covered balcony like on the Grand class ships.  Just noticed yesterday researching and the new ships have no stairs to any of the pools either...all ladders.  What a shame.  I know it is everyone's personal preference on these items, but we just said we must be in the minority to feel the way we do.  

[mellon1]

3 hours ago, AF-1 said:

mellion1;  I have had club class on all my cruises and we have the same wait staff every night.  

Wow, you lucked out.  Even at lunchtime on sea days, it was very busy.  We went later in the evening and they told us that we could only have the same server/table IF they were available.  People were still eating their meals.  We have excellent service all the time in the dining room anyways.  We kinda felt like fish in a bowl when we would do Club Class as everyone was looking over wondering why they couldn't come over in that area!  We usually stay on for 30 or more days and so it is so much easier to get the same staff so they know what we like and also getting to know them is one of the best parts of our cruise.

[jwattle]

20 hours ago, MissP22 said:

We've never done Club Class & always though it wasn't wort it.

Let us know more. 

We'll be reporting on Majestic Club Class in March 🥂

[mellon1]

26 minutes ago, jwattle said:

We'll be reporting on Majestic Club Class in March 🥂

When we were in a suite and did CC, I asked what the difference was.  There may be one item cooked special and the waiters in CC did not have to wait in line for food orders.  They went to the front of the line bypassing all other waiters/servers in the dining rooms.  They said they loved that part of being a waiter in CC!  Oh, also, it is a separate area just for CC and suites.  We preferred Sabatini for breakfast when we were in a suite.  Servers in CC are supposed to be the best of the best and they are wonderful; however, as I said, we always get excellent service anyways.  I think there may have been one time our waiter was "off" and we all are some days, so we don't even count that!

[jwattle]

We have a week in a CC mini and a week in a PH Suite. Looking forward to it all with total enthusiasm like a kid at Christmas and not minimizing any of it 🥂😄 !🥰

[mellon1]

9 minutes ago, jwattle said:

We have a week in a CC mini and a week in a PH Suite. Looking forward to it all with total enthusiasm like a kid at Christmas and not minimizing any of it 🥂😄 !🥰

Good for you guys!  You will absolutely love Sabatini's for breakfast and the mimosas when in the PH Suite.  Be sure to post photos of the PH suite and balcony.  Truly looking at the new ships, but want a nice size covered balcony and that is hard to find these days.  Enjoy!  Cheers!

[AF-1]

5 hours ago, mellon1 said:

Wow, you lucked out.  Even at lunchtime on sea days, it was very busy.  We went later in the evening and they told us that we could only have the same server/table IF they were available.  People were still eating their meals.  We have excellent service all the time in the dining room anyways.  We kinda felt like fish in a bowl when we would do Club Class as everyone was looking over wondering why they couldn't come over in that area!  We usually stay on for 30 or more days and so it is so much easier to get the same staff so they know what we like and also getting to know them is one of the best parts of our cruise.

I understand what you're saying.  If I cruised for that many days;  I too would want same wait staff; same cabin steward/stewardess.  All the best

 

[mellon1]

4 minutes ago, AF-1 said:

I understand what you're saying.  If I cruised for that many days;  I too would want same wait staff; same cabin steward/stewardess.  All the best

 

It gets old having to repeat over and over.  They have our bottle of wine ready each night. Many times order the night before so they can get it when convenient so we don't have to wait so long at dinner and may have a glass when seated.  Thanks and all the best to you too.

[WinksCruises]

A buffet server guards the cookie tray 24/7 from passing dirty hand grabs...

 

We covered food quality in an earlier installment, criticizing both the ins-and-outs of the crew-served buffet experiment gone horribly wrong (above) and the general hit-or-miss delectability of the entrees featured in the main dining room. So what’s the sense in flogging a dead horse you might ask? (Which, btw, is a particularly fitting analogy here since we’re talking about the Caribbean Princess’s food quality, IMHO!).

 

 

Well, the reason to regurgitate this bitter-tasting morsel is because Mrs. Winks reminded me that we failed to talk about the two other specialty restaurants onboard and our bizarre first encounter with Club Class Dining.  So please, forgive us the indulgence and consider this one of those palate-cleansing after-dinner mints. Bon appetite!

 

 

In researching the ship prior to cruising, we were excited to see two new (for us anyway) dining options available: Steamers Seafood and Planks BBQ.  Sure, they were upcharge specialty restaurants, but we were thrilled to see alternatives to the main dining room for nights we were feeling a bit more free-wheeling (by now, you know what that’s “code” for 🥂 ). 

 

 

Let’s just say, our initial thrill was very short-lived.  Soon after boarding the ship, we discovered that both Steamers and Planks venues were closed for the voyage, probably due to our 40% passenger capacity or crew member shortage. Our back-up options would be limited to burgers at the Salty Dog Grille, poolside pizza slices, or sardine sandwiches down at the World Fresh Marketplace. Yum.

 

 

One small consolation, we thought, was that as Suite guests, we could take advantage of Club Class Dining, Princess’s thinly veiled campaign to further inject the caste system into modern day cruising. Okay, let me tell you, there’s nothing “exclusive” about Club Class Dining. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Apparently, everybody and their brother (and some people they met during karaoke at the Crooners bar) can crash “the club” and dine amongst us elites if they have enough OBC!

 

 

While irksome, that really didn’t bother us, just as long as we weren’t forced to sit with any of them!  What really bothered us about Club Class Dining was the non-existent little extras we were promised.  Allegedly, as part of Club Class, your party will be able to chose from special off-menu items that include select dishes not available to the commoners chowing-down over in steerage.

 

 

Stuff-shirted snobs that we are, Mrs. Winks and I couldn’t wait to savor these culinary extras, knowing that, even if we hated them, at least they would be exclusively ours to hate.

 

 

But here’s the upshot; we never saw any of these special Club Class dishes, even when we ordered them! On the first night, for instance, the waiter was all giddy describing the delectable charcuterie board the chef himself had arranged for our table.  It never materialized. A few nights later, there was also another exclusive dish that never was presented!  Was it just incompetence of our wait staff, or was the whole CC thing a sham?

 

 

The Mystery of the Unavailable Cruise Items

 

Another bizarre thing happened to us while seated in Club Class Dining.  One night, I couldn’t decide between two dessert choices - panna cotta or a bowl of (seasonal) mixed berries – so I asked the waiter for his recommendation. “Why don’t I bring you both?” he said, grabbing the dessert menu and clapping it shut.

 

 

Minutes later, he returned with a bowl of small berries smothered in what he claimed was panna cotta.  But it wasn’t the gelatin mold, substantive, panna cotta I’m familiar with. This was very runny, almost like a vanilla soup!

 

 

To be honest, it wasn’t bad, but I felt it was pretty presumptuous of them to combine the two dishes like that. The presentation was horrid and really not up to Club Class standards.

 

 

We can probably blame this all on a very green crew, this being only the fourth voyage since the Caribbean Princess began sailing again. Still, I’m not sure Club Class is worth the extra cost if they offer it on your sailing. There really didn’t seem anything special about it.

 

My Panna Cotta soup w/berries!

 

 

One other area that took some adjusting to was playing slots in the Grand Casino.  Of course they blame Covid as the reason they no longer offer paper vouchers when you “cash out” from a slot machine. Post-pause, your winnings are transferred to your virtual casino bank. 

 

 

That’s a little unnerving, not having a physical print-out to represent your winnings.  It also makes cashing-out a bigger hassle, as you have to visit the casino cage, swipe your Medallion, and enter your pin to claim your winnings. Let’s face it, it gets embarrassing, standing in front of the cashier, as she counts out your last remaining $5 – and she asks you if you want it in big bills or small? Smirking!  So what are you much more likely to do? Spend down your balance til it’s zilch, of course! Which I’m sure many people (read: Mrs. Winks) did!

 

 

Call me old fashion, I still want to walk around the casino floor with a plastic bucket of filthy quarters! In fact, I was so annoyed about the new paperless payouts, every night I made a conscience effort to walk away from the video poker machine whenever I was ahead. In the end, that came out to a whopping $24 dollars profit by the end of the cruise. A psychological win - rather than a monetary one.  Mrs. Winks, sadly, didn’t share that discipline and now the kitties are going to go hungry!

 

Paperless cash out = The newest house "edge"

 

So that’s about “all she wrote” from this cruise.  Disembarkation was a little nail-biting as we had an 11:00 am flight to catch, but we managed to get off the ship right after the walk-offs, gather our luggage, and get to FLL airport by 9 am. Plenty of time to sit on the horrendous bag-check and security lines.  Truth be told, we both felt the most vulnerable to Covid exposure at the airport, not the cruise itself!

 

 

As for the future, and against my better judgement, we are embarking on another cruise in late February 2022.  You’ll have to jump over to the Royal Caribbean boards to follow that adventure, so keep an eye out of us.  Something about Puerto Rico, Explorer of the Seas, and the ABC-ovid Islands. Should be even a bigger mess than this was!

 

 

The easiest way to keep up with WinksCruises is to follow us on our Instagram accounts:

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/winkscruises/

https://www.instagram.com/mrswinkscruises/

 

 

Thanks for your readership and happy sailing!

 

 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by WinksCruises
Formatting issues

[memoak]

13 minutes ago, WinksCruises said:

A buffet server guards the cookie tray 24/7 from passing dirty hand grabs...

 

We covered food quality in an earlier installment, criticizing both the ins-and-outs of the crew-served buffet experiment gone horribly wrong (above) and the general hit-or-miss delectability of the entrees featured in the main dining room. So what’s the sense in flogging a dead horse you might ask? (Which, btw, is a particularly fitting analogy here since we’re talking about the Caribbean Princess’s food quality, IMHO!).

 

 

Well, the reason to regurgitate this bitter-tasting morsel is because Mrs. Winks reminded me that we failed to talk about the two other specialty restaurants onboard and our bizarre first encounter with Club Class Dining.  So please, forgive us the indulgence and consider this one of those palate-cleansing after-dinner mints. Bon appetite!

 

 

In researching the ship prior to cruising, we were excited to see two new (for us anyway) dining options available: Steamers Seafood and Planks BBQ.  Sure, they were upcharge specialty restaurants, but we were thrilled to see alternatives to the main dining room for nights we were feeling a bit more free-wheeling (by now, you know what that’s “code” for 🥂 ). 

 

 

Let’s just say, our initial thrill was very short-lived.  Soon after boarding the ship, we discovered that both Steamers and Planks venues were closed for the voyage, probably due to our 40% passenger capacity or crew member shortage. Our back-up options would be limited to burgers at the Salty Dog Grille, poolside pizza slices, or sardine sandwiches down at the World Fresh Marketplace. Yum.

 

 

One small consolation, we thought, was that as Suite guests, we could take advantage of Club Class Dining, Princess’s thinly veiled campaign to further inject the caste system into modern day cruising. Okay, let me tell you, there’s nothing “exclusive” about Club Class Dining. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Apparently, everybody and their brother (and some people they met during karaoke at the Crooners bar) can crash “the club” and dine amongst us elites if they have enough OBC!

 

 

While irksome, that really didn’t bother us, just as long as we weren’t forced to sit with any of them!  What really bothered us about Club Class Dining was the non-existent little extras we were promised.  Allegedly, as part of Club Class, your party will be able to chose from special off-menu items that include select dishes not available to the commoners chowing-down over in steerage.

 

 

Stuff-shirted snobs that we are, Mrs. Winks and I couldn’t wait to savor these culinary extras, knowing that, even if we hated them, at least they would be exclusively ours to hate.

 

 

But here’s the upshot; we never saw any of these special Club Class dishes, even when we ordered them! On the first night, for instance, the waiter was all giddy describing the delectable charcuterie board the chef himself had arranged for our table.  It never materialized. A few nights later, there was also another exclusive dish that never was presented!  Was it just incompetence of our wait staff, or was the whole CC thing a sham?

 

 

The Mystery of the Unavailable Cruise Items

 

Another bizarre thing happened to us while seated in Club Class Dining.  One night, I couldn’t decide between two dessert choices - panna cotta or a bowl of (seasonal) mixed berries – so I asked the waiter for his recommendation. “Why don’t I bring you both?” he said, grabbing the dessert menu and clapping it shut.

 

 

Minutes later, he returned with a bowl of small berries smothered in what he claimed was panna cotta.  But it wasn’t the gelatin mold, substantive, panna cotta I’m familiar with. This was very runny, almost like a vanilla soup!

 

 

To be honest, it wasn’t bad, but I felt it was pretty presumptuous of them to combine the two dishes like that. The presentation was horrid and really not up to Club Class standards.

 

 

We can probably blame this all on a very green crew, this being only the fourth voyage since the Caribbean Princess began sailing again. Still, I’m not sure Club Class is worth the extra cost if they offer it on your sailing. There really didn’t seem anything special about it.

 

My Panna Cotta soup w/berries!

 

 

One other area that took some adjusting to was playing slots in the Grand Casino.  Of course they blame Covid as the reason they no longer offer paper vouchers when you “cash out” from a slot machine. Post-pause, your winnings are transferred to your virtual casino bank. 

 

 

That’s a little unnerving, not having a physical print-out to represent your winnings.  It also makes cashing-out a bigger hassle, as you have to visit the casino cage, swipe your Medallion, and enter your pin to claim your winnings. Let’s face it, it gets embarrassing, standing in front of the cashier, as she counts out your last remaining $5 – and she asks you if you want it in big bills or small? Smirking!  So what are you much more likely to do? Spend down your balance til it’s zilch, of course! Which I’m sure many people (read: Mrs. Winks) did!

 

 

Call me old fashion, I still want to walk around the casino floor with a plastic bucket of filthy quarters! In fact, I was so annoyed about the new paperless payouts, every night I made a conscience effort to walk away from the video poker machine whenever I was ahead. In the end, that came out to a whopping $24 dollars profit by the end of the cruise. A psychological win - rather than a monetary one.  Mrs. Winks, sadly, didn’t share that discipline and now the kitties are going to go hungry!

 

Paperless cash out = The newest house "edge"

 

So that’s about “all she wrote” from this cruise.  Disembarkation was a little nail-biting as we had an 11:00 am flight to catch, but we managed to get off the ship right after the walk-offs, gather our luggage, and get to FLL airport by 9 am. Plenty of time to sit on the horrendous bag-check and security lines.  Truth be told, we both felt the most vulnerable to Covid exposure at the airport, not the cruise itself!

 

 

As for the future, and against my better judgement, we are embarking on another cruise in late February 2022.  You’ll have to jump over to the Royal Caribbean boards to follow that adventure, so keep an eye out of us.  Something about Puerto Rico, Explorer of the Seas, and the ABC-ovid Islands. Should be even a bigger mess than this was!

 

 

The easiest way to keep up with WinksCruises is to follow us on our Instagram accounts:

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/winkscruises/

https://www.instagram.com/mrswinkscruises/

 

 

Thanks for your readership and happy sailing!

 

 

 

 

2 comments. I have never seems on CC mini or suite guest allowed in club class dining. Second Princess has not had printouts for several years on slots but has been put on your casino winnings on your cruise card or medallion. Perhaps you were referring to some lesser cruise line

 

[phonejock]

@WinksCruises First, Thank you so much for your very entertaining report of your cruise.  I really enjoyed it. For what it is worth ( since it has been two years since we last cruised) DH and I loved Club Class. The special dinners or deserts the head waiter prepared were always exceptional. We felt that the service was better and meals took less time.

I am very sorry you had a bad experience and hope the poor service was an aberration. All the best. 

[chamima]

1 hour ago, WinksCruises said:

A buffet server guards the cookie tray 24/7 from passing dirty hand grabs...

 

We covered food quality in an earlier installment, criticizing both the ins-and-outs of the crew-served buffet experiment gone horribly wrong (above) and the general hit-or-miss delectability of the entrees featured in the main dining room. So what’s the sense in flogging a dead horse you might ask? (Which, btw, is a particularly fitting analogy here since we’re talking about the Caribbean Princess’s food quality, IMHO!).

 

 

Well, the reason to regurgitate this bitter-tasting morsel is because Mrs. Winks reminded me that we failed to talk about the two other specialty restaurants onboard and our bizarre first encounter with Club Class Dining.  So please, forgive us the indulgence and consider this one of those palate-cleansing after-dinner mints. Bon appetite!

 

 

In researching the ship prior to cruising, we were excited to see two new (for us anyway) dining options available: Steamers Seafood and Planks BBQ.  Sure, they were upcharge specialty restaurants, but we were thrilled to see alternatives to the main dining room for nights we were feeling a bit more free-wheeling (by now, you know what that’s “code” for 🥂 ). 

 

 

Let’s just say, our initial thrill was very short-lived.  Soon after boarding the ship, we discovered that both Steamers and Planks venues were closed for the voyage, probably due to our 40% passenger capacity or crew member shortage. Our back-up options would be limited to burgers at the Salty Dog Grille, poolside pizza slices, or sardine sandwiches down at the World Fresh Marketplace. Yum.

 

 

One small consolation, we thought, was that as Suite guests, we could take advantage of Club Class Dining, Princess’s thinly veiled campaign to further inject the caste system into modern day cruising. Okay, let me tell you, there’s nothing “exclusive” about Club Class Dining. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Apparently, everybody and their brother (and some people they met during karaoke at the Crooners bar) can crash “the club” and dine amongst us elites if they have enough OBC!

 

 

While irksome, that really didn’t bother us, just as long as we weren’t forced to sit with any of them!  What really bothered us about Club Class Dining was the non-existent little extras we were promised.  Allegedly, as part of Club Class, your party will be able to chose from special off-menu items that include select dishes not available to the commoners chowing-down over in steerage.

 

 

Stuff-shirted snobs that we are, Mrs. Winks and I couldn’t wait to savor these culinary extras, knowing that, even if we hated them, at least they would be exclusively ours to hate.

 

 

But here’s the upshot; we never saw any of these special Club Class dishes, even when we ordered them! On the first night, for instance, the waiter was all giddy describing the delectable charcuterie board the chef himself had arranged for our table.  It never materialized. A few nights later, there was also another exclusive dish that never was presented!  Was it just incompetence of our wait staff, or was the whole CC thing a sham?

 

 

The Mystery of the Unavailable Cruise Items

 

Another bizarre thing happened to us while seated in Club Class Dining.  One night, I couldn’t decide between two dessert choices - panna cotta or a bowl of (seasonal) mixed berries – so I asked the waiter for his recommendation. “Why don’t I bring you both?” he said, grabbing the dessert menu and clapping it shut.

 

 

Minutes later, he returned with a bowl of small berries smothered in what he claimed was panna cotta.  But it wasn’t the gelatin mold, substantive, panna cotta I’m familiar with. This was very runny, almost like a vanilla soup!

 

 

To be honest, it wasn’t bad, but I felt it was pretty presumptuous of them to combine the two dishes like that. The presentation was horrid and really not up to Club Class standards.

 

 

We can probably blame this all on a very green crew, this being only the fourth voyage since the Caribbean Princess began sailing again. Still, I’m not sure Club Class is worth the extra cost if they offer it on your sailing. There really didn’t seem anything special about it.

 

My Panna Cotta soup w/berries!

 

 

One other area that took some adjusting to was playing slots in the Grand Casino.  Of course they blame Covid as the reason they no longer offer paper vouchers when you “cash out” from a slot machine. Post-pause, your winnings are transferred to your virtual casino bank. 

 

 

That’s a little unnerving, not having a physical print-out to represent your winnings.  It also makes cashing-out a bigger hassle, as you have to visit the casino cage, swipe your Medallion, and enter your pin to claim your winnings. Let’s face it, it gets embarrassing, standing in front of the cashier, as she counts out your last remaining $5 – and she asks you if you want it in big bills or small? Smirking!  So what are you much more likely to do? Spend down your balance til it’s zilch, of course! Which I’m sure many people (read: Mrs. Winks) did!

 

 

Call me old fashion, I still want to walk around the casino floor with a plastic bucket of filthy quarters! In fact, I was so annoyed about the new paperless payouts, every night I made a conscience effort to walk away from the video poker machine whenever I was ahead. In the end, that came out to a whopping $24 dollars profit by the end of the cruise. A psychological win - rather than a monetary one.  Mrs. Winks, sadly, didn’t share that discipline and now the kitties are going to go hungry!

 

Paperless cash out = The newest house "edge"

 

So that’s about “all she wrote” from this cruise.  Disembarkation was a little nail-biting as we had an 11:00 am flight to catch, but we managed to get off the ship right after the walk-offs, gather our luggage, and get to FLL airport by 9 am. Plenty of time to sit on the horrendous bag-check and security lines.  Truth be told, we both felt the most vulnerable to Covid exposure at the airport, not the cruise itself!

 

 

As for the future, and against my better judgement, we are embarking on another cruise in late February 2022.  You’ll have to jump over to the Royal Caribbean boards to follow that adventure, so keep an eye out of us.  Something about Puerto Rico, Explorer of the Seas, and the ABC-ovid Islands. Should be even a bigger mess than this was!

 

 

The easiest way to keep up with WinksCruises is to follow us on our Instagram accounts:

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/winkscruises/

https://www.instagram.com/mrswinkscruises/

 

 

Thanks for your readership and happy sailing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can't speak to the rest but the small round dish on the left is the Panna Cotta we received in CC on the CAribbean last week. (We sailed with our grandchildren who made it a contest to see how many desserts they could consume each night. That particular night it was these four.)

BTW - It was delicious!

Edited January 14, 2022 by chamima

[mellon1]

On 1/12/2022 at 3:39 PM, JF - retired RRT said:

On the Caribbean (?) That would be E730 & 731.

Dolphin deck has a really huge balcony in the same location, but they're not covered and have a handicap bathroom (altho' not classified as a HC cabin).

Yes, we have been in those rooms.  We are looking at the new ships, as it seems the Grand class ships are less and less in the Caribbean during winter months.  Going for longer, don't want to be in a room that isn't good or with a small balcony you can't enjoy.  Thanks for your input though.  

[WinksCruises]

1 hour ago, chamima said:

the small round dish on the left is the Panna Cotta we received in CC on the CAribbean last week

Now that's what Panna Cotta should look like! Glad to see they have figured out the recipe - and didn't serve it drowning fresh berries!

[WinksCruises]

1 hour ago, phonejock said:

I am very sorry you had a bad experience

Thanks! Overall, it wasn't a "bad" experience.  More of just a wonderment... And we certainly need to account for the current "situation". So yes, probably restarting aberrations.

[WinksCruises]

2 hours ago, memoak said:

have never seems on CC mini or suite guest allowed in club class dining.

Not sure what you are saying here, but we were definitely invited to Club Class as Suite guests. It was listed as one of the  benefits on our welcoming letter. And their appeared to be tons of other guests (more than the number of suites) in attendance, which is how it was explained to us - you could purchase your way in.

 

2 hours ago, memoak said:

Princess has not had printouts for several years on slots

Last time we cruised Princess, which was just before the pandemic, they still had printouts on the ship we were on.  The casino host on this cruise told us, oh we got rid of those for safety reasons.

 

 

2 hours ago, memoak said:

Perhaps you were referring to some lesser cruise line

If you're expecting hard facts in THIS trip review, you probably need a lesser blog post! 😉